


Play to the Crowd

by gamera (Megan)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aphrodisiacs, Come Swallowing, Dragons, Facials, Hemipenes, M/M, Oral Sex, Sex Work, Sexual Roleplay, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-14 00:43:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21006881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megan/pseuds/gamera
Summary: May the heavens save Ryushi from nervous young men who have no idea what they're doing, and from the madams who insist upon hiring them instead of paying more to poach an experienced performer from another house or theater.





	Play to the Crowd

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laylah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/gifts).

"It will be an honor to work with you," the new boy says, and his voice almost doesn't shake. With his head bowed, Ryushi could almost believe that he isn't terrified. They always are in the beginning, even when they don't have any reservations about the job itself. All the courage in the world doesn't mean much when you're looking at a dragon up close for the first time.

That fear means they need a lot of practice before they can go onstage. Which in turn means Ryushi has to put in extra hours practicing with them and, if not assuaging their fears by proving he'll fit just fine, coming in them often enough that they care more about that than their stage fright.

And Ryushi is young, nowhere near his second molt. He's heard of bigger houses in bigger cities with star performers who would dwarf him, and can't imagine how long it might take to hire new blood there.

He could kill Yasuo for quitting right before the ambassador from the next city-state over arrives in town. Yamahara-no-Arisato has the kind of reputation madams write to one another about, one that follows him across the continent. He will want to see the most decadent show their own smaller city has on offer, and that means the dragon seducing someone's pretty servant or-- likely more to what rumors say about Arisato's taste-- punishing an arrogant trespasser.

Unfortunately for the ambassador, this new one looks less like an arrogant soldier or petty official and more like the good-hearted servant taking respite from his cruel master. Yasuo might be a flighty bastard who'd left them shorthanded, but he had always been good at sneering and struggling until the moment he couldn't anymore. Every movement of his held an arrogance that he wasn't a talented enough actor to have entirely feigned.

Which goes a long way towards explaining why he'd quit so abruptly as soon as the whisper of a better offer at a house in another city had come. He's always thought he's better than the rest of them: that he deserves something more than generous enough coin for doing an honest job he's decent at.

Insufferable offstage or not, Ryushi still wishes that Yasuo had waited another month to quit. Because now he's got a sweet-faced little thing kneeling before him, small enough that he's going to take some extra care. He's at least a full head shorter than Yasuo, and Ryushi isn't used to performing with someone smaller than an average man.

"At least you're polite," Ryushi says, instead of commenting on his nervousness or size. "Which is more than I can say about your predecessor, who's left us in a bind.

What had Madam Mori said the boy's name was? Ryushi's been too distracted to listen to her as closely as he should. It's as if having to throw a performance together with an unknown quantity and impress some hedonistic human lord who can make or break the city's trade for the forseeable future is gargantuan task that commands all of his attention. Not even the legendary wisdom of a dragon-- which he will gladly ascribe to himself, even if he's hardly ancient enough for that-- can compete.

"Na-- Izuru. My name is Izuru." He had been about to say something else, as if he's trying on a name or remebering not to say _Something-no-Something_ or both.

Whether he's on the run or trying a new stage name is not Ryushi's concern. Izuru would be neither the first actor to shed an old persona nor the first noble bastard shoved aside to work on a stage like this. No, Ryushi's concern is that he is clearly an adult by human standards but perhaps not for very long, with his long, dark hair tied back and wide, wet dark eyes that make him look like a frightened animal. He's going to have to plan an entirely different show than he had first assumed. 

At least his face is pretty enough, and if they're all lucky then the lack of height might be compensated for in flexibility.

"Well then, Izuru," Ryushi says, uncoiling himself and rising up, "let us begin."

Looming over people will likely never stop amusing him. He's scarcely larger than a serpent who terrorizes farms or fishermen, yet he still can still stand higher than a grown man's head.

Izuru's hands go to his sash, lingering there like he's not quite sure what to do with it. Or like he wants to stall for time before going through with what he's signed himself up for.

"You may leave that on for now," Ryushi says. May the heavens save him from nervous young men who have no idea what they're doing, and from the madams who insist upon hiring them instead of paying more to poach an experienced performer from another house or theater.

Yasuo might be a bastard, but whomever had hired him had more ambition and sense than Madam Mori seems to sometimes.

He curls up on his side, the best compromise he can make between giving this terrified rabbit of a boy some semblence of easy access and not completely kinking up his back. Time enough to have him crawl under Ryushi or straddle him and ride once he knows why he would want to seek it out; they'll go as slowly as they can afford this one time.

If he does fail to meet expectations, at least they will have wasted less time this way.

"I--" Izuru starts to say something, then seems to thinks better of it. He at least has been shown an anatomy book wherever he had been until now, because he knows to put his manicured hands on the slit where Ryushi will unsheathe from. _Right_ upon it, as if he plans to completely dispense with foreplay or artifice and commence with this as quickly and efficiently as possible.

What does he think performing _is?_

"The audience and I will both prefer your mouth," Ryushi allows himself to hiss through his fangs after a moment of hesitant fingertips teasing at him, and Izuru startles. "I'm sure you can figure it out; you seem clever enough."

Izuru lays his palms-- not nearly so soft as Ryushi would have expected given the careful neatness of his fingernails that verges upon vanity-- flat on Ryushi's underbelly as if mapping out where and how to place himself. After so much maddening deliberation that Ryushi very nearly digs his claws into soft flesh and forces the boy into place, Izuru drops even further from his knees so that he's half lying on the floor. His chest is propped up on Ryushi's flank so that his face is level with the sheath slit, and his heart beats so fast and hard that Ryushi can feel it.

It's not a position he'll take often, not if he's pushed into a starring role in the show right away. If Yasuo had been a decent person and given any sort of notice and they'd had time to ease the new boy in he would have lay like this. It's a position for a secondary performer who might play the part of a god's attendant, ready to serve the serpent and readying him for the main event.

Izuru ducks his head down slow and deliberate, his breath warming Ryushi's tender, scaleless underbelly until finally lips touch skin. When they do he shivers enough for Ryushi to feel it, mouthing at the soft skin for a moment before slipping his tongue out to run over the slit. It's faster than Ryushi had expected him to go, but this doesn't feel like desperate efficiency. 

And then he slips his tongue into the slit, dipping in and finding the slickness that wells up as Ryushi's cocks swell in anticipation of unsheathing.

"Yes, like that." Ryushi digs his claws into the floor instead of burying them in Izuru's hair and scoring marks in his scalp; he will never live it down if he leaves bald spots on a brand new performer found on short notice for the most difficult role to fill. Especially since he hasn't made a gaffe like that in decades-- it's just that he's spent the last few years performing with Yasuo, whose usual scripts call for Ryushi to subdue him instead of seducing him. It's been so long since he's had someone lick him open like this, since he's had such attention to him instead of the audience before them.

Little by little the tension leaves Izuru as he goes from nervous kitten licks to lapping up precome with muffled _mmm_ and _ahh_ sounds, as the magic kindling every dragon's blood takes him as it does everyone who's come before him.

Then his tongue brushes over one of Ryushi's cockheads and his claws are in the boy's tail of hair, dark and heavy as a brushstroke, before he quite knows what he's doing. The slippery strands are hard to hold onto, and instead of taking a chunk of Izuru's scalp he comes away with the hair ribbon instead.

Izuru pulls away, startled, as his hair falls down around his shoulders. His cheeks are flushed, his mouth swollen obscenely and shiny with spit and precome, his eyes glazed over.

"I should not have pulled your hair," Ryushi manages to admit, words hissing from the effort of not forcing Izuru's mouth back to him. He already misses the sweet, humming warmth upon him. "But you must finish what you've started. We must always stay on script."

"I will," Izuru promises, and as soon as the words leave his mouth he's back to coiling the tension in Ryushi's belly. He must have already reached the point of thinking of nothing but drinking down more of the precome that's making him feel so warm; it's what keeps him calm and focused as Ryushi's cockheads begin to push up out of his sheath.

Once it begins, it cascades all at once. In the space of one breath Izuru is in his own world, eyes half-lidded and hands rubbing vague patterns on Ryushi. By the time his next breath comes he's wide-eyed and aware as his protesting noise is gagged by the cock that's just filled his mouth and hit the back of his throat in one forceful stroke.

"Stay," Ryushi commands. Izuru does as he's told, though his eyes water and his hands tremble as Ryushi _gently_ places his hand on the back of his head and urges him further down. "You only need go as far down as the split."

Both of Ryushi's cockheads stand unsheathed, but they each have enough length that only one has forced its way into Izuru's mouth. The other rests wet and heavy against his cheek, smearing a line of precome onto his face and, as he sinks down, into his unbound hair. There are tears on his cheeks and his hands scrabble against Ryushi with a sudden burst of nervous energy, but he hasn't gagged so far.

Then again, would Madam Mori really have hired someone whose throat can't hold a cock? He shouldn't be as surprised as he is when Izuru's wide-stretched mouth reaches the root where Ryushi's cocks come together and there's nothing but the sound of his own breath hissing, the unreal clutch of the boy's throat around one cock and the cool slither of his hair over the other.

"There," Ryushi says, voice strained and hissing. Izuru makes a muffled whine, and Ryushi realizes he's pricked his claws in. He quickly pulls them away. There's no blood upon them, thankfully. "You've done it-- now pull back and come down again without my help."

This is as much an audition as anything Madam Mori has already put him through-- she might be in charge, but if Ryushi can't train this boy then he'll have to go. Not that he expects it to be a problem now, not when Izuru is already doing as he's bidden and pulling back.

He _knows_ that it's not a problem when Izuru swallows him down again without the guiding hand not quite forcing him down. It's slower going, tight and wet, and Ryushi can already feel a tightening in his belly as he's sheathed in the boy's throat.

"Pull back again, and keep me in your mouth this time." That's another job for a supernumerary, a new performer who can be cajoled with enough pay to hold a dragon's cock in their mouth during a dramatic opening scene or lay under him while he tells the hero what he's going to do to him, but until opening night he can use it as a training exercise. The boy will be less nervous about Ryushi's cock if he's had it in his mouth long enough to be used to it.

Izuru does, and once his throat isn't stuffed full he lets out a cock-muffled _mmm_ like the ones he'd made earlier. The humming vibration is the last thing Ryushi needs to cajole his first, gentle orgasm of the evening out of him, and he shudders and spills himself onto Izuru's tongue with a rumbling groan.

Spills, and spills, and spills. It always seems like that with someone new, someone who doesn't eagerly drink down as much as they can out of pure reflex. Izuru coughs and sputters, come running down from the corner of his mouth, onto his throat, into his hair and under his robe. But swallow he does, his throat working hard enough to see, and after the first few gulps the flush on his cheeks begins to spread down to his throat. His cock twitches where he's pressed against Ryushi, and he wastes less and less come with every swallow.

When finally Ryushi is done, Izuru's mouth goes slack enough that he slips out. As soon as his mouth is empty, the boy swipes his fingers through the come on his neck, on his face, and slips them into his mouth with a sigh. The glazed look is back in his eyes as he sucks on his fingers, and his lips are so red and swollen they would be obvious from the stage.

_Perfect_.

"Perhaps we'll be ready next month after all," he concedes as Izuru takes his wet fingers from his bruised mouth.

"Thank you," he says, so hoarse as to be almost voiceless. They'll have to work on that, but it will take longer than a month. Speaking onstage after having a dragon's cock in his throat is a difficult skill that takes cultivation, and some performers never manage it. They can work around it if they can pick a script where Ryushi comes on his face, or fucks his ass. Yes, something where Izuru rides him, so the audience can see his long, shining hair-- best to play to the strengths he has when he doesn't have the experience to compensate for his weaknesses.

Which also means more work, but it's an attainable goal.

"I'll need to discuss it with Madam Mori," Ryushi says, "but I have an idea for a show you can learn quickly enough to please our upcoming diplomatic delegation. Fetch the salve."

"Fetch the…" Izuru trails off, soft and vague. "But you've already…"

He gestures at the mess left on him, even as he's unable to look away from the cocks resting on Ryushi's belly.

"Only from one of them," he says, and a shiver so violent goes through Izuru that had he been standing, his knees would have likely buckled. "Fetch the salve. You have a great many positions to learn before we can finalize the performance."


End file.
